Free Republic

Obama wants to reshape the agriculture industryIf he is willing to "bankrupt" the coal industry over global warming, what's he going to do to the agriculture sector which "actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector"? Don't forget about biden's EVIL corn syrup...evil corn syrup

Kimberley Strassel's If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto shows that the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP or CAP for short) includes many companies that seek corporate welfare in the form of government-mandated purchases of their services or products. Many of USCAP's members do not, in fact, even claim to produce a product or service, and are dependent on donations or grants. The recent performance of USCAP's portfolio also suggests that the Climate Action Partnership is Wall Street's Oscar the Cat: a harbinger of bankruptcy, desperate mergers, and generally poor business performance. ...While several of CAP's...

SALEM, Ore. (Legal Newsline)-The Bush administration has "refused to accept the reality" that greenhouse gas emissions are harming the environment, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers told Legal Newsline. Myers said for that reason a group of five states, including Oregon, is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the federal Clean Air Act to force the U.S. government to set emissions standards for planes, ships and off-road vehicles. "I share the view that global warming is a very, very serious threat, and the unmistakable pattern that's emerged under this administration is a refusal by the federal government to recognize that,"...

The Bush administration has "refused to accept the reality" that greenhouse gas emissions are harming the environment, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers told Legal Newsline. Myers said for that reason five states, including Oregon, are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the federal Clean Air Act to force the U.S. government to set emissions standards for planes, ships and off-road vehicles.

Are global warming alarmists encouraging children to commit suicide because their carbon footprints supposedly are harming the planet?It certainly appears so in a children's game concocted by the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Science Department, available online. 'Pigs' Should Die YoungThe game is called Planet Slayer. Using it, children can calculate their carbon footprint--how much impact their carbon emissions allegedly have on global warming. The purpose for doing so, children were told in a version of the game that was online in early June, is so they can "find out what age you should die at so you don't use more...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a layman’s critique of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory, and in particular to challenge the fairly widespread notion that the science and projected consequences of AGW currently justify massive spending and government intervention into the world’s economies.  This paper will show that despite good evidence that global temperatures are rising and that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas and help to warm the Earth, we are a long way from attributing all or much of current warming to man-made CO2.  We are even further away from being able to...

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old...

Thousands of Americans are pledging to fire up their charcoal barbecue grills, bask in the infinite glow of numerous incandescent light bulbs, shun recycling of any kind and take spontaneous road trips in gas-guzzling vehicles to increase their personal carbon output – all in protest of the Senate debate over a bill calling for a "cap-and-trade" system. Grassfire, one of the nation's fastest-growing grassroots organizations, has declared June 12 Carbon Belch Day and is enlisting citizens to expel more than 100 million pounds of CO2 to combat climate alarmist propaganda and to take a stand against a "$1.2 trillion carbon...

Climate Bill Underlines Obstacles to Capping Greenhouse GasesBy Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A12 When the Senate takes up landmark climate legislation this week, its backers can be sure of just one thing: The obstacles they face show how hard it will be to enact a meaningful cap on greenhouse gases -- probably under the next administration. The next administration, not this one, because even supporters of the complex, extensively negotiated 494-page bill say that there is little chance that it will win Senate approval, less chance that the House will...

AN ABC website has been accused of portraying farmers and forestry workers as evil and telling kids how much carbon they can produce before they die.

"In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution," Patzek says. "It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit."Ethanol is produced by fermenting renewable crops like corn or sugarcane. It may sound green, Patzek says, but that's because many scientists are not looking at the whole picture. According to his research, more fossil energy is used to produce ethanol than the energy contained within it. Patzek's ethanol critique began during a freshman seminar he taught in which he and his students calculated the energy balance of the biofuel. Taking into account the energy required to grow the...

Captain Benjamin Torpy (back), commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery and interpreter Timmy, talk to al-Rasheed Nahia deputy chairman Hussein Obaid Shurada and local farmer Oday Ibrahim Ghathwan al-Ghererri, as Sheikh Qassim Abbas Shereat looks on at the groundbreaking for the Shukrega greenhouse, May 10. U.S. Army photo. CAMP STRIKER — Local government officials gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony for the Shukrega greenhouse in the Mahmudiyah area, about 25 kilometers south of Baghdad, May 10. “The project brings to the area an opportunity to prove how effective the greenhouse can be for farmers,� said Capt....

Al Gore reinvents the medieval racket of selling indulgences (pardons for one's sins, worth hundreds of years of penance in an invisible Purgatory). With due credit to Geoffrey Chaucer for the original: Now, good men, Earth forgive you each trespass, And keep you from the sin of greenhouse gas. My carbon offsets cure and will suffice, So that it gains me gold, or silver brings, Or else, I care not- brooches, spoons or rings. You must embrace fully Al Gore’s line of bull, While o’er your eyes we will pull the wool! An offset certificate I’ll give you, anon, And...

We understand that Barack Obama wants Albert Gore to serve as his environmental advisor. All the carnival barkers, medicine show proprietors, and rainmakers seem to be getting together in the same circus tent, and the price of admission is more than the American people can afford. For reference, a rainmaker was a charlatan who would visit desperate communities during droughts. He would display an impressive array of regalia, which might have included artifacts that he had supposedly obtained from Native American medicine men, and offer to make it rain–for a price. The desperate farmers would give him their money, and...

PARIS (AP) -- Negotiators from the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases wrapped up another round of climate talks yesterday by clashing over how deeply to cut the heat-trapping gases they put into the atmosphere. The delegates from 16 nations scheduled more talks next month in trying to produce a new climate accord. Addressing the negotiators, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that warming is threatening food supplies and risks sparking a dozen Darfur-like conflicts among displaced, starving people around the world. He said water shortages and rivalry over farmland and fishing resources already are "having a considerable impact on security,"...

Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne's daily Crimewatch (also known as One Network News) I have recently been lucky enough to be in two right places at the right time. In December last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David Evans and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali, too) that showed while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an extensive "hot spot" in the upper troposphere over the tropics, the satellite measurements show no such hotspots have...

The Australian reports a few inconvenient truths regarding global climate change that have yet to receive much attention from a media sold on global warming. Not only has the Earth cooled since its peak year in 1998, not only are oceans cooler than predicted, but new NASA data shows that the computer models that predicted runaway global warming were based on a fundamental error. Rather than having clouds and water vapor amplifying the warming effect of carbon in the atmosphere, it turns out that they compensate for it (via Memeorandum): Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places...

New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center. After studying it,...

New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Ames Research Center. After studying it,...

Linda Greenhouse, who has covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times for 30 years, said Wednesday that she has accepted a buyout package from the newspaper. Greenhouse joined the Times in 1968 and started covering the court in 1978, making her career there longer than any of the current justices except John Paul Stevens, who came on in 1975. News of Greenhouse's departure had been reported earlier Wednesday on a legal blog on the Web site for National Review magazine. Greenhouse, 61, said in a phone interview that she had been planning to retire in a few years...

Sandia's synthetic-fuel recipe: Mix CO2 , water; heat with sun R. Colin Johnson (12-19-2007) In the hydrogen economy, automobiles would be powered by the simplest element on the periodic table, leveraging the element's abundance. But as the Hindenburg disaster demonstrated, hydrogen is also the most difficult element to compress into a safe, usable form. Why not instead synthesize a hydrocarbon-based fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline? Sandia National Laboratories is building such a fuel synthesizer in a bid to harness sunlight to reverse the process of combustion. The reactor would use reclaimed carbon dioxide emissions to create renewable synthetic...

Hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones has partnered with several big Wall Street firms and The New York Mercantile Exchange to form a new electronic venue for trading carbon greenhouse gases and other emissions, The Post has learned. According to people familiar with the deal, the new venture, to be called The Green Exchange, will compete with the Chicago Climate Exchange, which was established last year for carbon trading. In addition to Jones' firm, Tudor Investment Corp., and the Nymex, the new exchange is backed by Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch. Evolution Markets, a leading broker in...

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Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon DioxideMicroalgae under the microscope: CO2-feeders in the ocean. (Credit: A. Stuhr/ IFM-GEOMAR) ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2007) — Microscopically tiny marine organisms known as plankton increase their carbon uptake in response to increased concentrations of dissolved CO2 and thereby contribute to a dampening of the greenhouse effect on a global scale. An international group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany documented this biological mechanism in a natural plankton community for the first time. In simulations of the future ocean, they measured an increased CO2 uptake...

Seas to absorb greenhouse gas, but food chain hitSun Nov 11, 2007 1:25pm EST By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - Tiny ocean plankton can reduce global warming by soaking up unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide but their carbon-bloated cells might damage marine food chains, scientists said on Sunday. Experiments in a Norwegian fjord showed that plankton -- small drifting plants or creatures -- could absorb up to 39 percent more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, in seawater pens mimicking projected climate conditions to 2150. "This is a massive and surprising change in the carbon content of...

A renewable energy source designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is contributing more to global warming than fossil fuels, a study suggests. Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and maize have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save. Other biofuels, especially those likely to see greater use over the next decade, performed better than fossil fuels but the study raises serious questions about some of the most commonly produced varieties. Rapeseed and maize biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 per cent and 50 per cent more greenhouse gases respectively...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge tossed out a lawsuit by California's attorney general on Monday seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from six automakers for damaging the state with climate-changing greenhouse gases.

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by. The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader. The group will also...

Despite the anti-forestry scare tactics of celebrity movies, trees are the most powerful concentrators of carbon on Earth. Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver. It seems like there's a new doomsday documentary every month. But seldom does one receive the coverage that Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio's latest climate-change rant, The 11th Hour, is getting. When we're bombarded anew with theatrical images of our earth's ecosystems when the film opens across B.C. this Friday, I'm concerned that we're losing sight of some indisputable facts. Here's a key piece...

Lots of issues including Russia – the USA complicated relations were discussed at G8 summit in Germany, but the question of the greenhouse effect taken for unimportant for many years appeared to be one of the most disputable. The parties agreed that so-called post-Kyoto agreements implying double reduction of emissions by 2050 should be worked out. In 2013, as soon as the Kyoto protocol is no longer valid, Germany is going to put forward an initiative of an agreement on global 30% cut of CO2 emissions by 2020. The document is supposed to be ready at the end of 2007...

Link to Hearing (Real Audio) Hearing on California's Greenhouse Gas Waiver from the EPA Edmund "Jerry" Brown Jr., California's Atty. Gen., argues his state's case for a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has not yet made a decision on California's 2005 request to regulate greenhouse gases on new vehicles. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chairs this hearing of Sen. Environment & Public Works Cmte. 5/22/2007: WASHINGTON, DC:

TOKYO - Japan's prime minister proposed cutting world greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 on Thursday as part of a new global warming pact for all countries, including top polluters United States and China. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the proposal at a conference on the future of Asia and plans to present it at the upcoming summit of industrialized nations in Heiligendamm, Germany, in June. The initiative calls for close cooperation between developing and developed nations to piece together a comprehensive global warming pact to take effect in 2013, after the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases expires. "We...

Bush details plan to curb US addiction to foreign oilWASHINGTON, May 14 (AFP) May 14, 2007 President George W. Bush rolled out Monday plans to slash US reliance on oil supplied from unstable regions and so boost the energy-hungry country's defenses against extremist attack. The directive to cut gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next 10 years will make the United States "more secure for generations to come," help economic growth and safeguard the environment, Bush said. The so-called "20 in 10" plan was first laid out in Bush's State of the Union speech in January, seeking to slash...

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/energy/energy050707_aei.rm AEI Discussion on the Implications of Supreme Court Greenhouse Gas Decision The Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency is forcing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles. Jonathan Adler, Case Western Reserve Univ., and Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Univ., are two of the panelists discussing the implications of the decision. The event is hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. *Due to audio problems, there is no sound for the first 2 minutes of the video. 5/7/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 2 hr. 7 min.

NEW YORK - New York City produces nearly 1 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions — an amount that puts it on par with Ireland or Portugal — according to a city study. The study, released Tuesday, was ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assess the city's progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. It was conducted by the mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability. "You have to have a real baseline or we're just talking past each other as to what works and what doesn't work — we won't ever know whether...

The five liberal judges on the Supreme Court, the same five who gave cities the right to confiscate the property of poor people in Kelo v. New London, just decided, against historical fact and scientific evidence, that the EPA should control CO2. Eventually, when the Democrats are in power, this might mean stringent controls on industrial plants, power plants and internal combustion engines – controls that will greatly increase costs and reduce efficiency – in order to limit a harmless substance that all plant life needs in order to grow.

New calculations show that sensitivity of Earth's climate to changes in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) has been consistent for the last 420 million years, according to an article in Nature by geologists at Yale and Wesleyan Universities. A popular predictor of future climate sensitivity is the change in global temperature produced by each doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. This study confirms that in the Earth's past 420 million years, each doubling of atmospheric CO2 translates to an average global temperature increase of about 3 Celsius, or 5 Fahrenheit. According to the authors, since there has continuously been...

The EU's top political leaders meet three times a year in a rose-coloured marble building known as Justus Lipsius. EU leaders arrived in gas-guzzling cars to debate green issues It is named after a 16th-Century Dutch scholar often described, predominantly by his fans, as one of the most learned men of his day, as well as the founding father of neo-stoicism, which combined pagan materialism with Christianity. Nowadays, the new Europe under Jose Manuel Barroso could even be described as eco-stoicism, combining materialism with environmental zealotry. The new movement, though, does not have as many converts as the Portuguese...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union leaders on Friday endorsed binding targets to cut greenhouse gases and ensure a fifth of the bloc's energy comes from green power such as wind turbines and solar panels. The deal also noted the role nuclear power could play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, an inclusion not welcomed by all leaders. "We have time still to reduce global warming to below 2 degrees," Merkel said as she announced the plan that would require greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and ensure 20 percent of its...

Exasperated by what they see as federal inaction over global warming, governors of five western American states have come together to pledge a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington will develop a regional pact to cut greenhouse gases and create a market-based programme to help businesses reach the goals. While these have yet to be set, the move illustrates how individual states are acting to tackle climate change and promote alternative energy rather than wait for initiatives from Washington. "Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had...

Al Gore won the Oscar last night. He was so proud. Read the short bios below of Al Gore and Michael Crichton, the author. The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, State of Fear. Here is the bio of Al Gore. http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/ovpbio_bottom.html Here is the bio of Michael Crichton. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/aboutmc/biography.html

CANBERRA, Australia - Australia will be the world’s first country to ban incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to curb Greenhouse gas emissions, with the government saying on Tuesday they would be phased out within three years. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yellow incandescent bulbs, which have been in use virtually unchanged for 125 years, would be replaced by more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs by 2009. “By that stage you simply won’t be able to buy incandescent lightbulbs, because they won’t meet the energy standard,” Turnbull told local radio. Australia along with the U.S. has refused to sign up to the...

Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

Most of the literate world today regards "global warming'' as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focused on international agreements to deal with that threat, and the heads of state from dozens of countries attended. To show why I assert that there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, I shall briefly review the science...

The United States has long thought itself to be the world's moral compass and "peace" keeper. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proclaimed the United States to be the "indispensable'' country. Yet abroad or at home, the reality is different. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population, produces 25 percent of the greenhouse gases. It leads the world in per capita consumption of five basic commodities: grain, meat, oil, coal and steel. President Bush, and most Americans, believe the United States to be the "greatest nation on Earth," or No. 1. But with no president...

Editorial: Strange weather is situation normal December 29, 2006 Summer snow is no tipping point for climate change CSIRO research fellow Barrie Hunt has done everyone a service by blowing the whistle on the pessimistic hand-wringing that accompanies too much of the discussion on climate change and its relationship to the drought now gripping southeast Australia. As the retired head of the CSIRO's climate modelling program, Mr Hunt says there is nothing historically unusual about Australia's predicament, contrary to much of today's political blather. According to the CSIRO's model of 10,000 years of natural climate variability, the drought can be...

I found this unbelievable. Even with all this snow, mean temperatures in Denver, CO are not lower than usual. Fascinating.

An ancient ice shelf has cracked off northern Ellesmere Island, creating an enormous, 66-square-kilometre ice island and leaving a trail of icy blocks in its wake. ''It really is incredible,'' says Warwick Vincent of Laval University, one of the few people to have laid eyes on the scene. ''It's like a cruise missile has come down and hit the ice shelf.'' The breakup was so powerful, earthquake monitors 250 kilometres away picked up the tremors as the 3,000 to 4,500 year-old shelf tore away from its fjord on Ellesmere. It broke up 16 months ago, but no one was present...

Scientists at UC Irvine have determined that levels of atmospheric methane -- an influential greenhouse gas -- have stayed nearly flat for the past seven years, which follows a rise that spanned at least two decades. This finding indicates that methane may no longer be as large a global warming threat as previously thought, and it provides evidence that methane levels can be controlled. Scientists also found that pulses of increased methane were paralleled by increases of ethane, a gas known to be emitted during fires. This is further indication that methane is formed during biomass burning, and that large-scale...

Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger has called for the introduction of an international tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fight global warming. Speaking in Nairobi at the United Nations Climate Conference on Wednesday, Leuenberger said that such a levy would help those worst affected by climate change. The president explained that each individual and business would pay the tax based on their CO2 emissions, with revenue going towards measures mitigating the effects of global warming. Leuenberger said that it would encourage major producers of CO2 to cut their emissions and provide sufficient funding for the measures. He added that...